« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »
March 28, 2007
How many mortages foreclosed in Manhattan last year?
Yet more evidence that the New York real estate market is strong. Pop quiz: how many mortgage forclosures were there in Manhattan (below 96th St) last year?
Answer: One.
Yes, one single mortgage foreclosed in all of Manhattan (at least the parts where most people actually live). If you want to be really liberal and include all of Manhattan (including the hinterlands where I live north of 96th), about 30 mortgages foreclosed last year. The outer boros are a bit of a blood bath, especially areas like Bed-Stuy, but it appears virtally impossible to lose one's home thorugh foreclosure in Manhattan.
Despite all of what one reads about the national real estate markets, it's undeniable that New York's is still going strong.
Here's the map - check it out.
Posted by adrianjo at 11:37 PM
March 15, 2007
Why Airlines Go Bankrupt, Reason #4948
CENTRAL TENNESSEE - Tiffany is coming down to Tennessee this weekend rather than me flying home. And I learned reason #4948 that airlines go bankrupt.
There's a big storm coming to New York tomorrow, 6" of snow predicted. Naturally there's a rush to get out. Two of the first four Delta flights to Atlanta tomorrow have already been canceled. Learning this, I rang-up Delta early this afternoon and asked if Tiffany could fly tonight into Knoxville, which is closer to me than Atlanta anyway. Delta was plenty willing to give Tiffany the second-to-last seat available to Atlanta tonight. But they wouldn't fly her to Knoxville instead without a $350 fee. Why? Because Knoxville is 233 miles away from Atlanta, which is too far, and Tiffany didn't buy a ticket to Knoxville. (Knoxville is actually closer to here than Atlanta.)
The situation at Laguardia at the present moment is so chaotic and dire that Delta has chartered a jet to fly to Atlanta tonight and carry the 92 standbys currently at LaGuardia. They were offering $400 travel vouchers plus hotel vouchers (perhaps another $200) to anyone willing to give up his seat and risk flying during tomorrow's snowstorm.
Meanwhile, what about that flight to Knoxville that leaves in a half-hour, the one Delta demanded we pay $350 to get Tiffany aboard? Yes, It's more than half empty. In other words, Delta is flying 29 empty seats to Knoxville and is paying to charter an entire plane to fly to Atlanta after offering anyone who wanted it $400 not to fly to Atlanta tonight.
I was trying to help Delta out tonight by rerouting Tiffany to Knoxville. Had they accomodated us, it would have been one less frustrated passenger getting paid $400 not to fly tonight. And I would have had a much better opinion of Delta. Next time one hears of passengers stranded at airports during storms or another airline bankruptcy, don't blame the weather--blame the airline.
UPDATE: Every Delta flight from LaGuardia to Atlanta until 6PM tonight has been cancelled. Basically, anyone who didn't leave yesterday won't make it until Saturday.
Posted by adrianjo at 09:02 PM
March 14, 2007
I'm probably the only New Yorker who cares about his landlord's health
Real estate is a blood sport in New York, and it's typically first experienced by virgin New Yorkers in the city's notorious rent market, where junior bankers will fight over a cramped Village studio in a 5th-floor walk-up that rents for $3000/month and requires a $6000 security deposit and a cosigner, plus a $5000 payment to the deadheaded and sleazy realtor who "found" you the place. Then one finds his landlord on some Worst 10 list.
I avoided most of this by living in Harlem, though my poor girlfriend's blonde hair attracts plenty of unwanted attention here. When I arrived late in the evening of January 1, my elderly landlady, who's lived in Harlem since she was born, called a car service and took me out to dinner at a place on Zagat's Top 50, insisting that she pick-up the tab. She outfitted me with a bed, sheets, and towels, seeing as my stuff wasn't to arrive for a few days. And she gave me a block-by-block rundown of the places to avoid in Harlem because of the drug dealers. What kind of landlord in New York City, or anywhere, does that for her tenants?
As her mental health declined, she started going increasingly batty, at one point ordering me to move out because, she said, I stole her birth certificate. I just kept on paying rent but quietly went into contract to buy a place, figuring I'd rather be a slave to a mortgage than to a landlord. (That was last July, and the condo still is not fully built.)
On Monday, shortly after I arrived at the plant in Tennessee, I got a call from the guy who lives on the second floor. He hadn't seen Dolores since Friday, and she had missed her Friday evening theatre appointment with him. I had noticed an awful smell in the hallway coming from her unit, a smell I couldn't place precisely but wasn't just rubbish. We ended up calling the cops, who Monday morning had been to the house and "removed" Dolores.
Long story short, she's been in a coma since blacking-out and falling Friday between 5PM and 6.30PM. The cops found her unconscious in the kitchen and took her to Harlem Hospital, where she vowed never to go, even though it's the same place that saved Martin Luther King Jr's life after the first assassination attempt. The doctors say that she's "in God's hands now," which I think is doctor-speak for "we've done all we can," which is rarely a good prognosis.
Regardless of the outcome, it's sad to see such a thing happen to someone who accomplished so much, becoming an African-American millionaire who is known throughout the Harlem community. In a city where 589 housing code violations barely qualifies one as among the Worst 10 landlords in the city, it's refreshing to know that there are friendly people out there who would rather take the tenants to dinner rather than to court.
Posted by adrianjo at 12:32 AM